Self Esteem Issues
by Rasberry Parfait
Summary: You can only listen to someone rag on themself for so long before you snap. PerryXElliot Friendship...kind of. In that weird, "I don't really hate you but I act like it" Dr. Cox way. No romance, unless you want to take it that way. Rated K, oneshot.


A/N: First fanfic for my latest obsession-[Scrubs]. Yay!

Just some random thing that popped into my mind after the three-count, em THREE-PerryXElliot stories. Two of them were romance, and I don't actually like the pairing as a romance. PerryXJordan is too perfect. Still, Perry and Elliot are two of my favorite characters (the Janitor is my third. I like none of these three better than another, they all share the top spot.) And I liked the friendship one a lot. And then I was waiting for the toast to pop up and this came to me. (I get a lot of ideas whilst waiting for toast.)

I'm pretty new to the fandom, also, so bear that in mind, and let me know how I did!

Disclaimer: If I owned Scrubs, would you be reading this on a website dedicated to disclaimered plagiarism? No. You'd be watching it on your TV. Clearly, you aren't, so it can be assumed that I do not, in fact, own Scrubs.

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Elliot Reed had self-esteem issues. That wasn't a secret.

Everyone knew it. Even she knew it, which was more than could be said for most of the rest of the self-esteem-lacking population of the world. She'd just had them for so long, she didn't really know what to do about them.

And she talked about them. A lot. It wasn't like she went around stating that previous paragraph out loud. It was more like, she insulted herself within casual conversations as if whatever she happened to be saying was a commonly known and accepted fact. Most people waited for her to finish and then, before responding to whatever her point had been, vehemently denied her self-contempt and insisted that she was not ugly, fat, stupid, insert-insult-of-the-moment-here.

Dr. Cox was not most people.

Elliot wasn't comfortable around him-most people weren't-and so when speaking to him face-to-face, she usually chose to keep her insecurities to herself. But he wasn't completely oblivious. He heard what she said to others, and to a lesser extent, what others said about her, but never really said anything. It wasn't his job, and heaven forbid he show any emotion to anyone other than contempt.

At least, that was the case before he finally snapped.

Elliot was speaking to Carla at the front desk when Dr. Cox walked by and picked up a snatch of their conversation. He stopped walking.

"Oh, for the love of…" He swore, turned around, and glared at her, and the force of it left her no choice but to turn her head in his direction.

"H-hello, Dr. Cox…" she squeaked, bewildered. _What did I do this time?_

"Oh, would you give it a rest, Barbie?" he spat. "There are teenage girls that wind up as _patients _here, starving themselves by trying to look like you, and if they don't off themselves that way then they kill themselves trying to stay focused enough to pass Algebra so they can get into med school. You barely have to try to do both those things, so clearly, the only problem you have is with listening, since you didn't seem to hear any of the times that _she-_" he gestured to Carla "told you what everyone _but _you seems to know-that you _aren't _ugly and you _aren't _stupid, in fact, most people would and _have_ said it's quite the opposite, so instead of endlessly whining about that, maybe you should do everyone and favor, get a psychiatrist and get over yourself!"

And with that, he walked away, leaving Carla and Elliot-not to mention everyone else who had happened to be in the vicinity-with open mouths.

Nobody knew what had set him off on that particular day. Whether it was because he was in a particularly good mood or a particularly bad one, it was hard to say. All anyone knew was that after taking a minute to work through what he'd said, Elliot seemed to be in a better mood than usual that day, and she always seemed a bit less critical of herself after that.

Especially when Dr. Cox was around.

0o0o0o0o0o0

A/N: Ah. Not my best. I don't hate this, but I'm not in love with it either. I like Dr. Cox's little rant though. And I like that last line.

It took me five tries to type the word "Barbie" correctly. I knew how to spell it, but my fingers just refused to cooperate.

Also, it took me for-ever to write Dr. Cox's little rant because after every sentence I'd be like. "Oh my gosh. I wanna play Pacman. Oh my gosh. I wanna play Solitaire. Oh my gosh. I wanna go on Polyvore." Etc.

Lastly, I'm kinda upset with this, because I didn't get the chance to make Elliot say "frick," which is like my favorite word, so I'll just say it now myself. FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICKETY FETCHIN' FRICK!

Ah. Feels good.

Anyway…yeah, again, first entry to the fandom, so let me know how I can improve, and um…supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (The squiggly red line didn't appear under that! Snap!)


End file.
